The present disclosure relates generally to information handling systems, and more particularly to managing virtual local area network (VLAN) associations with network ports.
As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option is an information handling system (IHS). An IHS generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements may vary between different applications, IHSs may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in IHSs allow for IHSs to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, IHSs may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
Additionally, some embodiments of information handling systems include non-transient, tangible machine-readable media that include executable code that when run by one or more processors, may cause the one or more processors to perform the steps of methods described herein. Some common forms of machine readable media include, for example, floppy disk, flexible disk, hard disk, magnetic tape, any other magnetic medium, CD-ROM, any other optical medium, punch cards, paper tape, any other physical medium with patterns of holes, RAM, PROM, EPROM, FLASH-EPROM, any other memory chip or cartridge, and/or any other medium from which a processor or computer is adapted to read.
Most modern networks and information handling systems are organized in a hierarchical fashion. Individual servers and end stations are typically coupled in a hub and spoke fashion to network switching devices or switches, with the end stations and switches typically being located in somewhat close proximity to each other. The switches are then in turn coupled to other switches in a hub and spoke fashion through one or more layers of switches until an edge router or gateway is encountered that couple the network of switches to other networks or wide area networks (WANs), such as the Internet. Depending on the configuration of the switches and/or the number of levels of switches in the hierarchy, the switches and their interconnections may form one or more local area network (LANs). The LANs are typically divided up geographically so that all of the end stations that are coupled to a particular switch belong to the same LAN. In order to move an end station from one LAN to another often involved moving the cable connecting the end station to the network from one switch to another.
When network function is partitionable by the physical location of the end station, this arrangement makes a lot of sense. This is, however, often not the case. In some examples, end stations from one department may be spread across several buildings where it is not practical to put duplicate switch hierarchies in place. In some examples, it may be desirable to segregate different kinds of network traffic on different LANs so that one type of network traffic (e.g., multimedia traffic) does not interfere with bandwidth needed for other types of network traffic. In some examples, the presence of mobile end stations that can move from access point to access point in different physical LANs may make the segregation of network traffic even more difficult.
Security and other concerns may also add to the difficulty. Due to the nature of network address learning and/or other protocols, switches often receive network packets on one port and flood it on the LAN by forwarding it to all the other ports on the LAN. If one department wants to prevent its network traffic from being flooded to end stations outside its department, the traditional LAN-based topology of the network is not adequate unless the LAN configuration is constrained so that the physical layout corresponds to the desired logical layout. This is often not very practical.
One potential solution for addressing some of the limitations of physical LANs is to divide the networks into virtual LANs (VLANs). In VLANs, network traffic is often tagged with a VLAN identifier (ID) field that indicates which VLAN the network traffic belongs to. The switches can control the ports on which to forward the network traffic by forwarding the network traffic only to those ports that are associated with the VLAN ID. This allows the network architect to organize VLANs across the switch hierarchy that may be independent of the physical location and connections between the switches. As long as at least one network path belonging to a particular VLAN exists between each pair of end stations associated with that VLAN, network traffic with the corresponding VLAN ID may move across the network. In some cases, it is often desirable to assign end stations and network links to multiple VLANs. This flexibility, however, comes with a price, as the management of VLAN associations and assignments in the overlapping VLANs may become quite complex.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide improved systems and methods for managing VLANs, including the learning of VLANs associated with network ports.